


Unarmored Defense

by orphan_account



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:21:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25246807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “You’re going to be guarding my daughter.”——In which Beau is a down on her luck professional fighter who gets a once in a lifetime chance at a job guarding world famous singer Marion Lavorre’s daughter, who she totally 100% will not fall in love with——In all likelihood I won’t be continuing this; my interest in the show has dwindled considerably since the return from hiatus
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 7
Kudos: 64





	Unarmored Defense

“I think I might have a solution to your problem.”

When Beau had shown up at Stone Fitness this morning, she had been expecting to spend a few hours working out her frustration on a poor, unsuspecting punching bag, not actively discussing the reason her life had been so shit as of late. 

“What, Fjord, you find a way to get me  _ un _ -blacklisted from every league from here to Tal’Dorei?” she says, putting another rapid series of jabs into the bag she was currently tenderizing. The half-orc in question stands a few feet off to her side, well out of kicking range should she choose to throw out a roundhouse in the near future, but she can still see him roll his eyes. 

“No, I think we’ve established you’re well and truly fucked on that front,” he says. 

“Then why are we having this conversation?” she asks, already getting fed up with something that was unlikely to go anywhere. 

“I’ve got something different; a personal friend, looking for some private work,” he says, crossing his arms. Beau stops her workout and turns to fix him with a glare. 

“I don’t do security, man. We’ve been over this.” She’d worked exactly one security job, and had quit after two weeks when it became clear it wasn’t her kind of work. 

“It’s not _ security _ , it’s  _ bodyguarding _ , there’s a difference,” Fjord sighs.

“Yeah, I get to have some rich asshole telling me to terrorize people in the name of protecting his shit instead of a corporation. Big fucking difference,” Beau scoffs. 

“Except this time, you have a  _ personal guarantee _ from someone you trust _ very much _ that said person is not an asshole,” Fjord says. “It’s a cushy gig, pays well, and it’s only a one-year contract so if you don’t like it you can just walk away at the end with a big paycheck and a good reference. Bonus points: you might get to beat up a couple perverts along the way.” Okay, that _ did _ sound a bit more appealing, but Fjord was still being mysterious as fuck, and Beau was suspicious of pretty much everything these days. 

“What are you not telling me?” she asks, squinting her eyes at him. 

“I’m just asking permission to send along a reference; I’m not telling you anything else cuz otherwise you’ll pick it apart and find an excuse to turn it down,” he says. 

“Not telling me anything is a pretty good reason to turn it down right the fuck now, dude.”

“Yeah but now you’re _ curious _ ,” Fjord says with a shrug, and frankly fuck him for being right. He knows her too fucking well, and she still hasn’t figured out how that happened.

“Ugh,  _ fine _ ,” Beau moans, throwing her head back in exaggerated exasperation. “Send your fucking reference. If it sucks I’m kicking your ass, though.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Fjord says with a smile. 

-

Beau manages to not think about it again until much later, when she’s sweeping up at her part-time gig at the Cobalt Soul Archive, and her phone starts buzzing in her pocket.  _ Unlisted Caller _ , it says, and normally she’d just ignore it, but she thinks back to her weird as fuck conversation with Fjord earlier and decides, sure, why the fuck not. She gives a quick look around the shelves to make sure stick-in-the-mud Archivist Zeenoth isn’t around, steps into a study room, shuts the door, and answers the phone. 

“This is Beau, who’s calling?” she says, already straining her patience for this mysterious shit.

“Miss Lionett? My name is Bluud,” a deep, gruff voice on the other end responds. “I’m calling with regards to a reference from your friend Fjord Stone?”

“This would be his mysterious job offer, then?”

“Interview offer. My employer was interested in your resume, and would like to meet with you to discuss things further.” Beau raises an eyebrow. 

“You know calling this dude ‘my employer’ makes it sound like you work for a mob boss, right?” she says before she realizes that’s probably not what you say to someone offering you an interview. Fortunately for her, Bluud just laughs, a deep and hearty chest laugh that Beau imagines resonates incredibly well in person. 

“I’ll be sure to note your suspicion.”  _ Shit _ . “I’m sure she’ll take it as a qualification.”  _ Kinda weird, but okay.  _ “It is nothing so exciting; she is merely a very public figure who prefers to keep her affairs private as long as possible.”  _ Okay, that seems reasonable.  _ “Do you have your passport up to date?” he asks. 

Beau blinks. “I’m sorry, what? I mean, yeah, but why?”

“Because we would like to fly you into Nicodranas tomorrow morning for an interview, Bluud says. 

Fucking  _ what _ ? “Am I gonna have to like, emigrate for this job, or something?”

“The duration of the contract involves a significant amount of traveling; we were told you do not currently have a permanent residence so it would not be as disruptive, is this true?”

“I mean. Yeah. I guess. Fuck it, why not. Text me the ticket and I’ll be there,” she says. 

“Excellent, I look forward to meeting you, Beauregard.”

“Just Beau is…” she starts to say, but Bluud has already hung up. She flips over to texting and shoots a message at Fjord. 

**4:53 - Beau: what the fuck dude why am i getting on a plane to fuckin nicodranas tmrw????**

**4:54 - Fjord: dont worry abt it :)**

**4:54 - Beau: fuck u and your mysterious bs dude**

By the time she’s finished messaging Fjord, her phone dings again, and she’s got a plane ticket ready to go for 8am the next day.  _ First-fucking-class _ . This shit just kept getting weirder. It’ll be an interesting weekend, at the very least. 

-

_ What the fuck. What the actual fuck.  _

Beau was having quite the morning. After landing from her _ incredibly _ comfortable flight to Nicrodranas, she had been greeted at the gate by a  _ personal driver _ who ferried her from the airport to the place she was supposed to be meeting her prospective new boss. If that wasn’t a strange enough experience for her, she _ recognized _ the house she now stood in the foyer of.

Because it was the fucking Lavish Chateau. As in the “home of the Ruby of the Sea, world famous singer and multiple platinum record holder Marion Lavorre” Lavish Chateau. At least now she had a good idea of why this whole gig was so secretive; Marion Lavorre was infamously a bit of a recluse, only ever performing live in her home city and keeping details about her private life on lockdown. 

After a few moments of standing absolutely dumbstruck in the middle of the room and feeling like an urchin in her wrinkled hand-me-down business clothes with her duffel bag of all her worldly possessions slung over her shoulder, a door finally opens on the other side of the room, and a massive minotaur man dressed in a full suit steps through. 

“Miss Lionett?” he asks, and Beau recognizes the voice as Bluud. She tries in vain to straighten herself out and make it look like she isn’t currently having her mind blown. 

“Uh, yeah, that’s me. Just Beau’s fine,” she replies. 

“Okay then, Beau, if you could just follow me into our security office, we’ll get the business out of the way,” Bluud says. As she passes him, he hands her a clipboard with a form and a pen attached to it. “Just a simple non-disclosure agreement; you will have to agree not to discuss any information regarding my employer or her business, staff, or holdings with anyone outside the Chateau before we proceed, you understand. Feel free to look it over while we walk.” 

Beau gives a quick once over but it looks like fairly simple stuff; she signs it and hands it back to him as they reach a black office door with his name and “Head of Security” engraved on the nameplate. She’s been in plenty of back offices before so she’s not tremendously uncomfortable. 

Until they step inside and Marion fucking Lavorre is standing right in front of her, looking over the contents of a bookshelf. She’s wearing a gorgeous purple and gold backless dress that compliments her deep red skin  _ fantastically _ , and some kind of lavender perfume; Beau immediately feels incredibly underdressed and maybe just a little flushed. 

“Hello, Miss Lionett,” Marion says with a smile as she turns to face Beau, extending a hand. “I’m Marion Lavorre.”

“I know,” Beau says before she can stop herself. She winces, and reaches out to shake Marion’s hand . “Sorry. Um. Beau. Just Beau.” 

Marion laughs. “It’s good to meet you, Beau.” She pulls two chairs out in front of the desk and takes a seat in one of them, while Bluud sits in the larger chair behind the desk and pulls out some papers. “I’m afraid we have to get the bureaucracy out of the way, but I do like to get to know my employees.” Beau cocks her head. 

“I thought this was an interview,” she says.

“Oh, we’ll just need to go over a couple of minor points but you received a glowing recommendation from Fjord, and I trust his opinion,” Marion responds. “Which isn’t to say I simply give work to friends; you have some very impressive qualifications in your own right.”

“Alright, sure. What do you wanna know?” Beau says, relaxing a little bit. 

“You graduated with honors from the Cobalt Soul in history; why did you decide to fight for a living instead?” Marion asks. Not starting off easy, then. Beau shrugs. 

“Dear old dad wanted me to do something ‘respectable,’ and history is cool and all, but turns out sitting around in dusty archives all day isn’t really my thing,” she says. Marion nods along; Beau thinks she looks approving, but it’s hard to really get a read on this woman. 

“I can understand that. You did very well in track and field while in school, and you’ve got four different black belts, so I can definitely see the personality clash,” Marion says. “With that and your MMA record, it seems like you would be quite well suited to continuing that line of work; what happened there?” Shit. Beau had  _ really _ hoped this wouldn’t come up, but realistically that was probably too much to ask. 

“My last sponsor got caught fixing fights. Not any of mine; I won all my matches fair and square, he didn’t need to fix anything, and he’d tell you the same thing. I didn’t even know until it was too late, but once you’re associated with someone like that…” Beau takes a breath, tries to keep her composure in the face of the mess that had all too recently ruined her life. “You don’t get signed anymore. I’m blacklisted in pretty much every respectable league, and even if someone takes me on, most people won’t want to fight me. So that career is over.”

Marion frowns and reaches out to put a gentle hand on Beau’s knee. “I’m sorry; it is unfair for you to be so harshly punished for someone else’s misdeeds.” What really surprises Beau about the gesture is that she really seems to mean it; there aren’t very many people in her life that don’t assume she was in on the Gentleman’s little scheme, but Marion’s known her for less than twenty minutes and seems to believe her whole heartedly. 

Marion turns to Bluud and says, “There was one other thing, something about employment history, remind me what it was?” Bluud clears his throat. “You’ve only worked one security job before, and only for a very short time; why did you leave so quickly?” That one was easy, at least, and if they don’t like the answer then they aren’t the kind of people Beau wants to work for anyway. 

“They wanted me to take down a homeless kid that just shoplifted a fucking candy bar. Told me not to be gentle about it. Quit on the spot.”

Marion makes a disgusted face and Beau catches Bluud scribbling something and mouthing it to himself; her lip reading is a little rusty but she thinks it’s something like “good moral character.” 

“Despicable,” Marion says, and then claps her hands together. “Alright, well, in that case I can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be a good choice for this position, so let’s move on to the fun part, shall we?” She pulls out a flier and hands it to Beau. It’s a show date listing for a concert tour. “I have decided to do my first tour.”

“I thought you only did hometown shows?” Beau asks. Marion nods. 

“That has been the case until very recently. I suffer from a debilitating anxiety disorder that makes travel extraordinarily difficult for me, but I have improved quite a bit as of late, and I should very much like to see the rest of Wildemount,” she says. “My concession to my disability is that I am hiring on quite a bit more security staff to help me feel secure.”

Bluud slides another clipboard across the desk to Beau. “Job offer is a one year contract,” he says, “during which time you will travel with the tour group and will be on call at all times, even when you are not escorting your VIP.” Beau raises an eyebrow. 

“That’s a hefty ask,” she says. Bluud nods. 

“And it pays accordingly. Monetary compensation totaling two-hundred twenty thousand, divided into monthly payments of twenty thousand, comprehensive insurance coverage that will extend up to a year after the contract ends if you do not continue working for us, travel, room, and board expenses covered in full, as well as a discretionary budget for purchasing any equipment you deem necessary to perform your duty.”

Beau just gawks at him. That’s more money than she’s ever earned in her whole life. 

“You will also be provided a uniform,” Bluud continues, gesturing towards his own suit, “but you are free to make customization requests, as long as you are still recognizable as personal protection staff.”

“Do you have any questions?” Marion asks. Beau looks between her, Bluud, and the contract on the desk in front of her. In the end though, it isn’t a hard decision. 

“Just one,” she says. “Can I get mine sleeveless?” 

Marion smiles. “I can’t see why not.”

“Then you’ve got yourself a deal,” Beau says, signing her name on the line. 

“Excellent!” Marion says, leaning forward and hugging her. Marion Lavorre is a hugger. Good to know. “I’ll leave you Bluud to finish the paperwork and get accommodations sorted between now and the start of the tour, and then later I can give you the tour?”

“Sure thing,” says Beau. “I suppose I should get to know you pretty well if I’m gonna be watching your back for the next year.” Marion laughs, and really it’s entirely unfair how gorgeous her laugh is. 

“You definitely should, but I’ve already got my own security sorted out,” she says. Beau gives her a confused look. 

“Then what am I here for?”

“You’re going to be guarding my daughter.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oops I started another wip don’t judge me
> 
> I have no idea how professional fighting works so if I say anything that’s wildly off the mark just assume that’s how it works in Modern Magic Exandria


End file.
